Bloodprice
by Cyberwolf
Summary: Destiny universe. In a world full of betrayal and tangled loyalties, does blood still count for anything? Should it? [Chapter 1 up] Planned pairings: AxC, but not main.
1. Prologue

**Prologue: Like the Light From the Morning Sun**

**

* * *

**  
_fall into a light sleep Watashi ni michiru   
I don't carry out yakusoku wa yagate   
Itsukano Kagayaki suteta   
Kaerenai asa no hikari noyou   
_** Fall into a light sleep, it encompasses my very being   
I never carry out my promises   
So long ago, I threw away my brightness   
And like the light from the morning sun, it can never return.**

_ -_Half-Pain, Witch Hunter Robin ED

* * *

He'd been a mistake.

Unlike Naturals, Coordinators did not feel the need to use birth control. The odds of conceiving, especially with a partner who was not a genetic match, were so slight as to not even be a factor. In fact, it was common for Coordinators – both male and female – to take fertility drugs in order to obtain a much-wanted child. The last thing anyone worried about was an unplanned pregnancy.

Nonetheless, that was the situation she found herself in.

The doctor who had informed her of her new condition did so with a smile, never doubting that this was a dream come true for the young woman in front of him. Her silence he attributed to wordless happiness. The absence of her husband – for of course she was married, how else could she be pregnant? – well, that was easily explained. No doubt the man was unavoidably engaged – there was no lack of things for _anyone_ to be doing, what with the economy kicking into high-gear and the tension building between the PLANTs and the Earth Alliance. Smiling in empathic joy for her, the doctor carefully advised her as to what diet to follow, what she could and could not do as her pregnancy progressed, and a myriad other things that Coordinator women had to consider when carrying a precious, precious baby to term. He then set an appointment for her to come back in for a check-up – Coordinator pregnancies were as carefully monitored as any of their ZAFT combat operations.

When he never saw the woman again, he sadly concluded that she had suffered a miscarriage – an all-too-frequent occurrence among the population, even with the best efforts of everyone involved.

As a matter of fact, the young woman in question had carried the baby to term, and gave birth just as the digital calendars shifted from August 31 to September 1 – PLANT time being set to Greenwich Mean. The baby was completely healthy, which surprised her a little, and she was so very _happy_ that he was, which surprised her even more. When the nurse came in with her son – _her_ son! – and laid him in her arms – when the baby boy, whose motor-control skills seemed strangely developed, even for a Coordinator baby, gripped her finger in one tiny hand – when her wondering, tearful eyes wandered over him, noticing all too well the genetic markers already in his features, traces of his father and his mother underneath the baby-fat – when she cradled him and understood fully how much a part of her – and _him – _this new fragile life was, she almost decided not to give him to the adoptive family she'd carefully and secretly arranged for.

Almost.

She'd never met the young couple until the day they came to take her baby away. She tried very hard not to look at them; the tears in her eyes would have made seeing them clearly a difficult task, anyway. She could hear them speaking to her, and she thought she actually responded verbally once or twice, but everything – once she could think clearly – seemed a blur in her memories. There was not much paperwork involved – they hadn't gone through any official agencies. And she'd insisted. The new 'father' had made – or had got a friend to make, she couldn't remember – birth certificates and other such documents for the baby. They offered to give her contact information, but she refused. She wanted to make the break clean and final – it would be too painful otherwise.

So they left, with her child in their arms, and something inside her broke beyond all healing.

* * *

**AN**: A fanfic inspired by the recent and complete AWESOMENESS of the latest **Destiny **episodes. That's right, this is a **Destiny **fanfic, not just **SEED**. (I find there's a lack of the former. Oh well, gives me a chance to be more of a pioneer). Ah, this takes me back to the good ol' days of my first forays into the world of fanfic – writing **Wing **stuff that now seems so amateur. :P Not that the run-on sentences are all that journeyman, but anyway…just gotta get stuff out instead of editing it to death like I usually do. (with negligible results, too!)

Oh yeah, the baby ain't a fanmade New Character. Can't stand them. And I have just deleted a rant on NCs that really has no place in the author's note for a prologue.


	2. Schooldays

_Nobody cares  
__Because I'm alone and the world is  
__Having more fun than me_

Just A Kid, Simple Plan

* * *

Shinn Asuka was admitted into the ZAFT Military Academy as an officer-cadet in the fall of CE 70, just after the Accords of Jachin Due. This did not raise eyebrows. It would be more accurate to say that this caused eyebrows to jump directly off the faces of several people; and, more importantly, it produced a lot of shouting and protesting. This was especially noticeable in the fathers of boys who had failed to qualify for the Academy.

A question as to whether or not Shinn was even legally able to enter the Academy was raised. Although Shinn had been born in the PLANTs, and as such held dual-citizenship, he was nonetheless a resident of Orb. The Academy did not admit foreign students – a wartime policy – and Shinn was enough of a gray case to bring before a court.

Opponents to the boy's entry cited security risks as a concern. It was tacitly understood, however, that it was more a matter of 'unsuitability' than anything else. These students were, after all, the future officers of the Zodiac Alliance Freedom Treaty Armed Forces, and probably – by birthright and privilege – the future leaders of the PLANTs. The alumnae list of "old Redgate", as the Academy was fondly nicknamed, read like a "Who's Who" listing of PLANT industrial, political, media and (of course) military powers.

An orphan boy with no connections, no noteworthy accomplishments and not even a PLANT citizenship did not seem to belong in that august group.

The judge ruled in favor of Shinn, and his application for full PLANT citizenship – discarding his Orb papers in the process – was soon approved. He began classes, along with the rest of the cadets, on the seventh of September, CE 70.

* * *

A group of typical Academy students – that is to say, wealthy, with influential parents, and expensively educated – decided that the upstart had no place in their company. Various encouragements to leave were offered him. 

They began simply enough – they laughed at Shinn, called him names, snickered when he went past. The laughter and smirking could be blocked out. The insults were annoying, but mostly because of how utterly unimaginative and uninspired they were.

"Hey, loser!"

"If it isn't the dirtboy, here to visit."

"I say, is that the bathroom, or just you?"

"I hear that on Earth, you lived with _Naturals._ Didja like that, huh? Didja like that, _Natural-lover!"_

Please.

Of course, it did have the effect of making most of Shinn's classmates avoid him like he was plague-ridden. Most were intimidated by his tormentors' status; the ones who weren't (they existed, though the tormentors liked to pretend everyone was impressed with them) couldn't be bothered. So Shinn was left mostly to his own devices.

It didn't really matter to Shinn – or so he told himself. It was nothing new, after all. He had become accustomed, back in Orb, to being somewhat of an outcast – ironically enough, for the reason that he was a 'ZAFT boy', which hadn't been true then but certainly was now. His only regular playmate had been his sister, Mayu. He had grown up so unaccustomed to friendly contact that, even had they not outcast him, Shinn probably wouldn't have known how to deal with the social complications anyway.

When they saw that Shinn didn't give a flip about their taunts – and with insults so pitiful, why this wasn't a surprise mystified Shinn – they moved onto more…active forms of discrimination. Their options here were even more limited than their insults, by the set-up at the Academy as much as by their lack of imagination.

They would have liked to sabotage his schoolwork. But assignments were handed in via personal terminal, and they couldn't crack the standard security system the Academy equipped on its computer terminals. Even, if by some sudden surge of capability, they _had_ managed to break through the Academy security system, they would then have to contend with the _personal_ firewalls and data-traps Shinn had programmed for his terminal.

In other words, it was impossible.

During class-hours, they made noise and roistered whenever Shinn was called upon to speak. Some teachers made them quiet down; some didn't. It was of no matter, though, as Shinn stopped reciting in class. This didn't really affect his grades; it only meant he had no room for mistakes in his assignments and tests.

They tried to sabotage his tests. But written tests were, like assignments, completed on personal terminals, and furthermore were time-limited. So, practical tests were their best bet.

Shinn would _not_ cooperate, however. He refused to be startled during marksmanship tests, seemingly going deaf and blind to everything but the target in front of him. No matter how many times he was tripped or jostled in physical examinations, he somehow managed to get by with passing grades – grades that, in many cases, were higher than their own. And they all agreed to never speak of the time when, put into a malfunctioning flight simulator, Shinn had not only outflown them, but somehow manipulated the sim-network so _their_ simulators were also malfunctioning.

It was then they decided to take…more _drastic_ measures.


End file.
